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About display formats </TITLE>
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<A NAME="X-REF377802618"></A><h1>About display formats </h1>
<A NAME="TI6315"></A><p>You can use display formats to customize the display of column
data in a DataWindow object. Display formats are masks in which certain
characters have special significance. For example, you can display
currency values preceded by a dollar sign, show dates with month
names spelled out, and use a special color for negative numbers. PowerBuilder comes
with many predefined display formats. You can use them as is or
define your own.</p>
<A NAME="TI6316"></A><p>Here the <b>Phone</b>, <b>Salary</b>,
and <b>Start Date</b> columns use display formats
so the data is easier to interpret:</p>
<br><img src="images/dwdis02.gif">
<p><img src="images/note.gif" width=17 height=17 border=0 align="bottom" alt="Note"> <span class=shaded>Display formats not used for data entry</span> <A NAME="TI6317"></A>When users tab to a column containing a display format, PowerBuilder removes
the display format and displays the raw value for users to
edit.</p>
<A NAME="TI6318"></A>If you want to provide formatting used for
data entry, you need to specify edit masks, as described in <A HREF="pbugp204.htm#X-REF356199281">"The EditMask edit
style"</A>.</p>

